Stanford completes semifinal win, will face USC in Gifford Collegiate final
Stanford's Jeffrey Swegle
(Stanford Athletics Photo)
NAPA, CA (November 9, 2016) -- Top-seed USC continued its run at the Gifford Collegiate with a comfortable 4-2 win over five-seed Northwestern in the semifinals on Tuesday afternoon at Silverado Resort and Spa.
18th ranked USC will take on two-seed Stanford who after play resumed Wednesday morning defeated six-seed Washington 3-2-1. With Stanford leading 4-2 play was suspended due to darkness at 5:16 p.m. PST before resuming Wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. local time.
Four of the six matches were completed Tuesday afternoon with the Cardinal's have claimed three of the four contests.
The Stanford wins on Tuesday came from junior Jeffrey Swegle (6&5), sophomore Isaiah Salinda (6&5) and sophomore Brandon Wu (4&3). Washington's lone victory was produced by freshman Henry Lee (1 up).
When play resumed No. 11 Stanford held 1 up leads in both matches and needed only to win or halve one of the two matches to advance while Washington had to flip both matches to move on.
Washington came out of the gates firing and nearly did flip the script as senior Corey Pereira came from behind to defeat fellow senior Maverick McNealy 1 up. Now with a berth in the championship match hanging in the balance Cardinal senior Viraat Badhwar was able to hang on via an all-square decision against Husky sophomore Carl Yuan.
The winning USC point was clinched by Monday's medalist winner senior Rico Hoey. Playing in the anchor match Hoey was able to down Husky sophomore Ryan Lumsden 3&1. The match was all-square through seven holes until Hoey pulled away with wins on Nos. 8 and 9.
Additional USC wins went to freshman Ching Jin (6&4), junior Jonah Texeira (1 up) and sophomore Justin Suh (2&1).
The key match ended up being Texeira's win over Northwestern junior Sam Triplett. Trailing 1 down with two holes to play Triplett won the 17th hole to square the match only to watch Texeira win the 18th hole and the match a few minutes later.
QUARTERFINAL RECAP
Top-seeded USC moved one step closer to their second consecutive win by defeating eight-seed Wisconsin in quarterfinal play at the the Gifford Collegiate. USC will now face five-seed Northwestern in the semifinals on Tuesday afternoon at Silverado Resort and Spa.
The Trojans, ranked 18th in the country, easily handled Wisconsin winning five of the six matches and halving the other for a 5-0-1 victory. Junior Sean Crocker set the tone early for USC by winning the opening match 4&3 over Wisconsin sophomore Jordan Hahn.
Also winning for USC in the quarterfinals was yesterday's medalist senior Rico Hoey (5&4), junior Jonah Texeira (6&5), sophomore Justin Suh (6&5) and redshirt senior Andrew Levitt (3 up).
USC earned the top-seed by finishing 38-under during Monday's 36-holes of stroke-play qualifying.
Their semifinal round opponent Northwestern moved on via a 3-2-1 triumph over four-seed Colorado. In a tightly contested match throughout the morning graduate student Conor Richardson pushed the Wildcats over the top with a 3&2 win in the anchor match against Colorado junior Spencer Painton.
The other two Northwestern points were put on the board by freshman Everton Hawkins (1 up) and sophomore Ryan Lumsden (2 up). Northwestern earned the four-seed in a tiebreaker over defending champion Washington.
In the second it will be two-seed Stanford taking on six-seed Washington.
No. 11 Stanford advanced after trailing early in the match by a 3-2-1 tally. Seven-seed South Florida received wins from junior's Cristian DiMarco (3&1) and Priyanshu Singh (4&2) to take a quick lead before Stanford took command with three back end victories.
The Cardinal points came from junior Jeffrey Swegle (3&2), senior Maverick McNealy (1 up) and junior Franklin Huang (4&3).
For Washington quarterfinal play proved to be less stressful as they handled three-seed UCLA 4-1-1.
UCLA freshman Spencer Soosman did win the first match of the tilt 1 up but Washington was able to respond with outright wins in four of the next five matches.
The Husky victories went to sophomore Carl Yuan (3&2), freshman Daniel List (6&4), freshman Sam Warkentin (1 up) and junior Frank Garber (1 up).